Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 259: Boys Will Be Boys

A shockwave of electricity twisted through the air, its violet glow lighting the space around it, leaving a faint scent of burning ozone as it snapped into a rock. Not more than a split second later, the rock shattered into a rain of dust and gravel. Garin winced. But the caster of the spell, Colin, only scowled at his results.

Erec rolled his shoulders, appreciating the destruction, but his gaze traveled to the actual target. A foot away was yet another rocky outcropping. Only, this one had a bottle on top of it. A bottle that was still perfectly intact; the missed target.

“Damn it all,” Colin complained.

“It was close,” Erec said; magic was difficult to control. And that wasn’t just because he sucked at it. Those forced lessons in the Academy about glyphwork had taught him about the difficulty. Every line in a glyph informed the spell. It constructed how the lightning strike was formed; it directed how it would flow through the air; and the caster had to carefully regulate the channeled mana inside of it to prevent it from exploding in their hands.

Even worse than that, subtle differences in the environment could alter a spell. But that wasn’t applicable to most of the simple glyph work taught to students, which was made to be robust and not need that type of specification.

This kind of magic was not the same. Lightning-based magic in particular was notoriously difficult to master and aim. Given how far his friend had come… well, Erec wasn’t surprised he’d earned the mantle of Kay; but yeah. Hitting a target about a hundred and fifty yards away with a spell like that? He was shocked that Colin even got as close as he did.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to try this?” Garin asked, slipping a rifle off his shoulder. “It’s your bachelor party after all. If all you wanted to do was head out into the barren wasteland and kill time destroying stuff, might as well mix it up.”

Erec gave the weapon a critical look; it was a Pendragon armament. And this was the first day he'd seen his friend walking around with it. The sight of a Knight with a weapon like that still rubbed him the wrong way; after so long growing up with it being forbidden by the church, it left him with an odd feeling in his gut. Even if he hated those red-robed bastards, he still couldn’t fully put the feeling away.

"I will not lower myself to use such a barbaric weapon. It's obvious you're itching to show it off; so fine, I'll allow you to take a shot while I recover so we may mock its inaccuracy. Bah. To think you'd resort to such a tool over a blade or magic. Even Tin Can's axe had more nobility," Colin complained and sat down on the dirt below. Not that there was much more than dirt and rocks out here. They were a good mile from the farms of the Kingdom; much of the land inside the Kingdom's wall was still wasteland, and this patch was no exception, thankfully.

Erec frowned.Here they were, three days from the wedding, and his friend’s mood had only grown worse. From what he heard from Garin and Olivia, there was substantial pressure for this to happen, and Colin bore the brunt of that pressure. House Nitidus and House Doctus were determined to seal their alliance, and behind the scenes, the King’s court was even pulling strings to encourage it.

"Well, if you insist. Thanks, man. I am dying to try this thing out." Garin grinned as he brought the rifle to his shoulder. Munchy let out a quick complaint as the fat squirrel scrambled from said shoulder to sit on his head. At his heel, Fido howled; the new pet coyote had put on a lot of muscle since Erec last saw him. It’d grown bigger than he thought coyotes got, already. And it was still a pup.

Then again, given the types he'd seen in the wasteland, probably none of them had as much food as the one Garin was raising.

“Detestable. Admit it, you’ve used it before. Look at the way in which you aim,” Colin called from the sidelines.

Garin grinned. “Not this one. I was honest about that… and, well, it’s not illegal anymore, so… yeah, maybe I talked a couple of friends in the Pendragons into letting me shoot some of theirs when we were headed to Vega.”

Ah.

That explained why they’d given that to him as a present then.

“And if you’d let me brag a little, I think I’m a decent shot,” Garin said, right as he pulled the trigger. It happened in an instant. The bottle exploded over a hundred yards away in a miniature rain of glass, and his friend let out a whoop, along with Munchy and Fido joining in, letting out their own noises, grunts, and barks respectively.

Colin scoffed. "As if that were impressive. Though I have not lowered myself to use such a savage device, it is obvious that they are easier to aim than spells."

“That’s the point, man. But, hey. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad shot—look, if you think it’s easy, try it yourself.” Garin tried to hand over the rifle to their friend on the ground, but the duke’s son refused to even touch the weapon.

“I shall not. Besides, there is no point in getting good at aiming it. Against the foes we’ve faced, it would be useless.” Colin fought back and got back to his feet. The mage flexed his fingers, no doubt motivated to show that he was far superior to some petty gun. Erec rolled his eyes. Garin shouldered the gun again and kept smiling at their friend, despite his bad attitude.

“You know, I’ve been thinking. With all the testing you’ve been doing with Erec and VAL—surely you guys could enhance an old-world weapon like this? We made Armors… is fusing magic with guns out of the question? Maybe if it had a bit of that to go with it, it could do something against stronger monsters?” Garin asked.

He has a point.

Erec opened his mouth to agree with his friend, only to be shut up by machinery in his head as VAL let its opinion be known.[We barely even understand how magic works on a quantifiable level, and he wants us to leverage it into technology? Why not just make a more sophisticated gun? Absurd. There is no need to play with anomalous energy and make such a risky device.]

VAL wasn’t the only one to complain, either.

Colin was quick to answer, “Ridiculous. If you want the power of magic, just use magic. You’re capable of learning basic spells. Technology is a poor substitute for the might you would command if you actually put in the effort to learn something useful.”

Garin looked at Erec with a pleading expression.

Though he already felt the migraine coming on from having to coordinate these two, they'd need to work together on a project like that… well… He took in the sword at Garin's waist and the two animals next to him. His friend had always only ever been an adequate swordsman. He held his own, but he couldn’t really compare to someone like Sir Alistar or Boldwick. Nobody would call Garin any more than that. With all of his skills, combat had always been where Garin lagged.

He squinted as he looked at where the bottle had been. They were a fair distance away. Garin had shot it cleanly and barely taken the time to aim. From what he'd seen of the Pendragons, shooting was a skill all its own. Enide had trouble making long shots sometimes, but she had the benefit of easily being able to change position by teleporting.

Even as much as the weapon still triggered some repressed part of his psyche, Garin having a gun wasn't a bad idea. Anything that might help him out in a battle and give him more options was worth exploring; the alternative was to keep putting him at risk doing things he was never good at, and with a sword, the range and danger that created was overwhelming. Despite any protests to the contrary, this was worth pursuing.

“I’ll see if I can get them to cooperate on it.”

“Absolutely not.” Colin refused.

[I agree. Which stings me to concur with him. It would be a waste of resources and might prove incredibly dangerous.] VAL buzzed, though only Erec could hear the voice in his head.

“…I’ll take the lead on it, man. Just practice with your rifle. I’m not sure if that project will go anywhere, but getting good at that rifle can only benefit us. Sure, maybe it can’t damage anything too powerful, but it can hurt a lot of things outside.” Erec rubbed his eyes while ignoring the chorus of protests from both VAL and Colin.

Eventually, one of the complaints cut through the noise.

"It's my bachelor party, and you're making plans for my future without taking my word into account at all. I cannot believe this. You lot are just like everyone else." Colin said it harsher than anything else—and almost broke into a yell.

Ah. Erec frowned and looked at Garin.

They had spent all morning letting him complain and vent, but they had yet to talk about what he and Garin had been meaning to say since they found out about the sudden forced wedding.

Garin shared a look, then took the initiative. He threw an arm over Colin’s shoulder and waited a beat.

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“Listen, man. Erec and I are not trying to control you. And you know this isn’t the same thing as the wedding… but we need to talk about that. You don’t need to go through with this if you don’t want to. You are your own person. You have your allies, and the stories about what you did down in Cavern Seven are spreading through the kingdom. I know we brought you out here to escape from the chaos all around you and forget about the wedding. But you need to decide what you want to do, not what your family or the Kingdom wants. Erec and I have your back, no matter what you decide. No matter what anyone else tells you, or wants you to do. It’s not their choice. It is yours.”

Colin stopped; his mouth tried to work, but he couldn’t say anything. His eyes danced between his friends, his breath quickened, and he shook.

Erec spoke, keeping his voice soft. His friend was on the edge. "It's as he says. I'm not exactly one to go with what the courts want, nor do I care. If you don't wish to marry her, don't." The only thing that had stopped the wedding from being refused outright was the sudden onslaught of responsibility Colin and the rest of them had been thrust into.

“I’m not

the same as him. You say my legend is spreading—yet I am not Erec, nor am I my father. Everyone still looks up to him for how he handled the Rot Behemoth. If I refuse this, I’ll bring shame to our household. What is the point of my blood if I do not support all the ones relying on me, or honor the generations that my name commands?” Colin choked on his words, trying to bite back tears.His friends shared a look, a silent conversation as Colin failed to keep the tears at bay, and was desperately wiping one away to try to hide it before they noticed.

Erec said what needed to be said. “You are not your father. You will never be your father. But you are you, Colin. And the pedestal you’ve put him on is a mere stepping stone for the man you’ll become. You are so much more than him, and you will become so much more than he can ever hope to be. Your future isn’t as a duke, leading a family in the Kingdom. It’s so much more, man. Your magic, your drive, your power—you will be more than that. And you should make your choices on the inevitability of that future, rather than chasing after a man’s shadow or a family’s legacy that you are going to outshine.” The mantle of Kay didn’t fall to simple men. He’d seen his friend grow. How many mages in this kingdom could say they'd been training in spells with Arch Magi on the power scale of the Grandmasters from a city with a magical dome—how many could invent their own complex magics so young? No one else on this earth.

And Colin was at the start of his journey.

What Erec said was nothing but the truth. At some point, as it did in all societies, the accomplishments he’d see would far outstrip the borrowed merits the name of his father and his family had bought him.

A tear ran down Colin’s cheek. This one he didn’t try to hide. His friend shook, and Garin pulled him closer.

“I… It’s not that I don’t want to marry Alexandra. I’m… I’m afraid of the change. What does it mean to tie my fate to hers? I am no longer an Initiate, but where am I going? Where are we going?" He paused for a second, considered the second part, and then spoke in a more somber tone. "In my dreams, I see a storm brewing outside our walls. Y-you say I’m strong, that I will be strong. But I fear I will not become strong enough to save the people I care for; how can a man defeat a storm that swallows all of the wastes? I will fail in my duties as the scion of House Nitidus. Ruin will come to us all, because such strength is an impossibility.”

“It is impossible for someone alone. You are not alone. You have us, right?” Garin grinned, giving him a brief shake to shock him out of the crying. "Take it one step at a time—do you want to marry her? Don't worry about anything past that. Don't worry about your duties to your household, man, or some imaginary storm. If trouble comes, it comes. And you'll have us. In the meantime, you've got to live your life," Garin said softly. Colin didn't have an answer to that, and didn't need to give one.

They lingered in the silence for a moment, letting it stretch.

Colin kept trying to stop the tears. He didn't say thank you, since he didn't need to. With the road that had been traveled beneath all of their feet, such words weren’t necessary. They stood with him, like so many times before.

At the end of a handful of minutes, Colin had stopped crying and was wiping at his face to clean up the evidence. He stopped as Fido let out a loud bark, drawing their attention to the horizon.

A cloud of dust was approaching.

"Ah. There we go. The rest of the bachelor party. Listen, man, sit on what we said, but tuck it away for today; those thoughts are for tomorrow—not tonight. I know you said you just wanted to sit around and break bottles, buuuuut… hey, man, it's your bachelor party. You knew we couldn't just do that, right?"

“Just what did you do?" Colin asked, dawning horror on his face.

Munchy chittered on Garin's shoulder, and if Erec didn't know the squirrel was a wild animal, he'd have sworn it was laughing at the noble. Garin didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The dust cloud approached, and it became obvious what he’d done as three large cars pulled up, screeching to a stop near them. The hooting and hollering of the batch of Pendragon boys their age as they rushed out of the cars made it quite clear that they had come to party.

This wasn't going to be the normal type of bachelor party in the Kingdom of Cindrus. Garin had decided not to abide by the refined and silently debaucherous way that the nobles of the court celebrated this kind of event. No. He’d picked the Pendragons. And they would party the way only men and women who spent every day on the road, not knowing if tomorrow would be their last, knew how to.

The group packed them into the cars and sped off, starting an impromptu race through desert terrain, ignoring the shouting complaints of a duke's son who was, when he thought nobody was looking, smiling just as wide as the rest of them.

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

PAIN.

“DAMN HIM,”

she screeched. The entirety of her essence had evolved into a tormenting, twisting kind of pain. The type of pain felt when the person one loved most died, but not simply that type of elegant pain. No. It was more; it took on layers. It came with a physical pain too, the type of pain felt when a muscle tore. The type of pain felt when a bullet went through the gut; the type of pain felt when one's dreams collapsed… layers, like paint on a canvas. Each shade of pain merged into a dreadful portrait of hellish reality. Each layer spilled freely on a canvas of desperation and hate that anyone with a soul would shy away from.She could not shy away. Vindicta had to experience every interminable second dwelling with that pain. But that was the thing: after the first rush of it, she realized.

This wasn’t a new pain.

She’d experienced it before, only it had been long enough for the harsh edges to dull under the weight of time and distance.

That was the only reason she could cling to her hate, instead of devolving into a ball of lost consciousness. Her experience let her cling to the hate, let her persist by building on that rage. Two hundred years ago, she’d tasted this. And now, it ensured her survival, letting her spread out her anger. Within the pain she endured, there was power.

When she had withstood enough, then came the thoughts. Loose at first. Amid the confusion and torment. But she began to collect them.

When she had collected enough of her thoughts, she paid attention to her weave. The source of the growing power she’d accumulated in her goal to kill a Goddess. The careful tapestry that connected her to the souls of all her devout followers.

The perfect outlet to let others feel what she suffered.

When Vindicta pulled herself together amid those moments of pain, she flooded stray connections in her weave, at random. And to her delight, when she did so, one of those pathetic peons felt an iota of what she was suffering. That their Goddess was suffering because of their failure. She punished them when she remembered she could punish them, because that was what they deserved.

And they screamed.

Most of them died when they got what they deserved. They ended up curling up on the floor as their minds broke, as they couldn’t even find it within themselves to move, to eat, to perform the necessities of maintaining a corporeal body. If Vindicta had a body, she would have done the same. She would have perished. Inasmuch as she viewed them as pathetic, she envied them, resented them for having the ability to fade away in the face of the unrelenting pain that she sent their way.

The bitter irony was that the little bit of pain she let them feel was but an ounce of what she suffered.

Around her burned the copper fires of her reality, the place she’d consolidated her power, the cocoon of her divinity. Each day that went by, a bit more of her mind returned—what remained of the gloriously fractured thing that was her—and with it, she noticed the silver fires polluting what was hers. They had been burning there. In her plane. In her world, this entire time. It was also a source of the pain she now felt, as it was ruining what she'd built.

SILVER.

JUST LIKE THAT WOMAN.

LIKE THAT BITCH.

Vindicta screamed, letting her sorrow, her anger, feed through hundreds of her strings. Some of them snapped instantly, overwhelmed by it, their souls shattered by the anger she brought to bear. It had the effect of sometimes causing her sheep to burn to a crisp as their souls overheated and turned their entire bodies into burning coal. Not that it mattered. They were all pathetic. Mere stepping stones for her ascension. She didn’t feel more than spite for them; given the chance, they would use her just as she used them. That was the truth of the pathetic nature of humanity.

That silver fire. It fought her copper flames. It burned at her, and even now, divorced from the clash which had brought so much suffering, it poisoned her, and poisoned her reality As a being destined to ascend to divinity, it was an insult to her, to everything she’d earned and taken. It would cut her off from that final push toward becoming a Goddess in her own right.

She fought against the silver fires, splashing coppery inferno after inferno against those petty little fires.

And to her anger, they persisted; they continued to burn; in those fires, she saw another place. A familiar one, echoes of the Round Table, echoes of the original fires which had ruined her life. They were different, yet too similar. They belonged to a different person, sure, and as more of Vindicta returned, she appreciated that fact.

Because it let her cling more to her anger, to direct her spite. The pain was a tool to reforge and change her. Just as it had been originally, so it was now.

Days went by. Weeks passed. Perhaps a month? Maybe more?

Vindicta seethed in agony. But she bore the pain. If there was one thing she could do, it was to bear pain. If there was one thing in this cursed reality that Vindicta could wield, it was hate and revenge. And the pain let her hold more of that power.

In that pain, she changed. She gained another goal. Now she had two, not just one.

Once, there was a Goddess who she swore to burn, and now, there was a man. Let the pain mold her, let it shape her broken pieces into yet another jagged and broken form. And once it was done… she would return. Two beings to make suffer as she had. Lavinia, and that mortal. Erec.

They would feel the same pain she felt, and then, once they broke, she would make them feel more. A hundred times more.

In the inferno of copper and silver flames, Vindicta smiled through a scream.